JERUSALEM — With the relationship between Egypt’s new Islamist leader
and Israel still in its fragile infancy, the terrorist attack on the
border that the two countries share with Gaza over the weekend
presented a critical opportunity — and a crucial test.

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Several high-ranking officials inside Israel’s government and
numerous independent experts on Israel-Egypt relations said Monday
that the attack — in which masked gunmen killed 16 Egyptian soldiers
on Sunday night and then barreled into Israeli territory in a stolen
truck and armored vehicle — is the best evidence yet that the two
countries are both threatened by lawlessness in the Sinai Peninsula.
Now the question is whether Egypt’s new president, Mohamed Morsi,
will make the Sinai a priority amid other challenges, and whether
Israel will make concessions in modifying the 33-year-old peace
treaty between the nations to allow for a more aggressive Egyptian
military presence.

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“Now it is obvious also to him that there is a real convergence of
interests here, and this may get us closer to him,” Danny Ayalon,
Israel’s deputy foreign minister, said of Mr. Morsi.

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Hillel Frisch, a political science lecturer at Bar-Ilan University
and senior research fellow at its Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic
Studies, said the attack underlined the differences between Islamists
like Mr. Morsi who support the international system of states and
others who are trying to challenge it.

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“The jihadists threaten any kind of order, anyone who has power, any
kind of incumbency,” Mr. Frisch said. “It will strengthen Morsi’s
commitment to be a status-quo actor, which is a big, big thing
strategically. He runs a state, and there are greater enemies to the
Egyptian state than Israel. In that sense, it’s a game-changer.”

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The attack brought several early signs of cooperation and
coordination. An Israeli brigadier general and his Egyptian
counterpart met near the border to discuss the investigation. Israel
handed over to Egypt the armored car and the bodies of those killed
as they tried to enter through the Kerem Shalom crossing. The Israeli
Foreign Ministry issued a statement of condolence.

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But comments by both Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday included hints of concern. “I
hope that this will be a wake-up call for Egypt regarding the
necessity to be sharp and efficient on their side,” Mr. Barak said
after visiting the area. Mr. Netanyahu expressed regret over the
killing of the soldiers and said, “It is clear that Israel and Egypt
have a common interest in maintaining a quiet border.” He quickly
added that “when it comes to the security of the citizens of Israel,
the State of Israel must and can rely only on itself.”

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Mr. Morsi declared three days of mourning for the soldiers who were
killed and traveled to Sinai with his defense minister, intelligence
chief and interior minister. Egyptian security officials had spoken
early Monday about a large-scale military operation near Egypt’s
Rafah crossing into Gaza, but there was little sign of it later in
the day.

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New details emerged Monday about the attack, which began as the sun
fell the night before. Egypt’s military said in a statement that 35
masked gunmen, packed into three Land Cruisers, stormed an Egyptian
checkpoint and killed the soldiers as they were sitting down to break
their Ramadan fast.

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Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Defense
Force, said one of the men then drove a truck, taken from the
military outpost and packed with a half ton of explosives, about a
mile to the Israeli border fence, which he blew up along with himself
and the vehicle. The armored car, also stolen, then entered Israel,
where it was stopped by three Israeli airstrikes that killed six or
seven men — most of them carrying explosives on their bodies — as
they tried to flee. The operation took 15 minutes.

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Egyptian officials have blamed militants in Sinai and said they were
aided by Palestinians in Gaza. In its statement, the military called
the attackers “enemies of the state” and said that “those who stand
behind them must be confronted by force.”

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But the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s most powerful political party,
posted a statement on its Web site on Monday night saying that
Israel’s intelligence agency, which it said had sought to “thwart”
Egypt’s revolution, could be responsible for the attack. The
Brotherhood, which was not speaking for the president, said that the
attack highlighted the need to “reconsider” the terms of Egypt’s
treaty with Israel, which restricts the number of troops that Egypt
can station in Sinai.

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But several Israeli officials and analysts noted that the so-called
military annex to the treaty signed in 1979 was modified two years
ago to allow seven additional Egyptian battalions into Sinai and that
Egypt has yet to fill that quota.

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“The Egyptians will have to look in the mirror and ask themselves
what they want to do” about Sinai, said Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, who
retired as No. 2 in the Israeli military in 2009. “For a long time
they pushed it under the rug. There’s a hill under the rug today.”

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But several others said the Egyptians would need even more troops,
along with more flexibility for air and intelligence operations, to
make a difference in Sinai. “Israel put the Egyptians in a very
difficult dilemma,” said Yoram Meital, chairman of the Herzog Center
for Middle East Studies at Ben Gurion University. “On one hand,
Israel is saying this is Egyptian territory, you have the
responsibility to keep it secure; on the other, they are saying you
should do this under the conditions of the military annex, and I
think this is an impossible mission.”

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If the episode offered a chance to improve the rocky relations
between Israel and Egypt, it also threatened the growing ties between
Mr. Morsi’s government and Hamas-controlled Gaza. In response,
statements by Hamas leaders exceeded the typical condemnations and
condolences, promising help in chasing down the attackers, who many
believe either came from Gaza or moved freely there in the planning.

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“We will not allow anybody to harm Egypt’s security,” Mohammed Awad,
Hamas’s foreign minister, said in a statement. Drawing clear
alliances, he accused Israel of “turning Sinai into a field of terror
and crime to shake the stability of Egypt.”

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Regardless of complicity, Gaza immediately suffered the consequences.
Israel shut down Kerem Shalom, its only commercial crossing into
Gaza; Egypt closed Rafah, through which both goods and people pass;
and Hamas blocked the tunnels through which all manner of things are
smuggled from Egypt. This left Gazans in long lines on Monday to load
up on gas and food in fear of soaring prices once existing supplies
are exhausted.

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“I do not know if these products will remain here or will disappear,”
said Saied Ajour, 56, pointing at boxes of Egyptian cheese on the
shelves of the Zawya market in Gaza City.

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Kareem Fahim contributed reporting from Cairo, and Fares Akram from
Gaza City. (Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company 08/07/12)